eap Mailing List: Issue 377: Netsel NITs

[Bernard Aboba (bernard_aboba]

Issue 377: Netsel NITs
Submitter name: Bernard Aboba
Submitter email address: aboba [at] internaut.com
Date Submitted: August 8, 2006
Reference:
Document: NETSEL-04
Comment type: Editorial
Priority: 1
Section: Various
Rationale/Explanation of issue:

Section 1

"which particular roaming relationship variation is used"

suggest changing this to:
"the roaming relationship path in use."

Section 1.1

I think you need to add some definitions from RFC 4284:

  NAI             Network Access Identifier [RFC4282].

  Decorated NAI   An NAI specifying a source route.  See [RFC4282]
                  Section 2.7 for more information.

  Realm       Realm portion of an NAI [RFC4282].

And some from RFC 4282:

  Network Access Identifier

     The Network Access Identifier (NAI) is the user identity submitted
     by the client during network access authentication.  In roaming,
     the purpose of the NAI is to identify the user as well as to
     assist in the routing of the authentication request.  Please note
     that the NAI may not necessarily be the same as the user's e-mail
     address or the user identity submitted in an application layer
     authentication.

  Network Access Server

     The Network Access Server (NAS) is the device that clients connect
     to in order to get access to the network.  In PPTP terminology,
     this is referred to as the PPTP Access Concentrator (PAC), and in
     L2TP terminology, it is referred to as the L2TP Access
     Concentrator (LAC).  In IEEE 802.11, it is referred to as an
     Access Point.

  Roaming Capability

     Roaming capability can be loosely defined as the ability to use
     any one of multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs), while
     maintaining a formal, customer-vendor relationship with only one.
     Examples of cases where roaming capability might be required
     include ISP "confederations" and ISP-provided corporate network
     access support.

And some more from 802.11 terminology:

  Station (STA): A device that contains an IEEE 802.11 conformant
  medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) interface to the
  wireless medium (WM).

  Access Point (AP): An entity that has station functionality and
  provides access to distribution services via the wireless medium (WM)
  for associated stations.

  Basic Service Set (BSS): A set of stations controlled by a single
  coordination function.

  Extended Service Set (ESS): A set of one or more interconnected basic
  service sets (BSSs) with the same Service Set Identifier (SSID) and
  integrated local area networks (LANs), which appears as a single BSS
  to the logical link control layer at any station associated with one
  of those BSSs.

     This refers to a mechanisms that a node uses to discover available
     realms prior the realm selection takes place.

I can't parse the last half of the sentence.  Can we shorten this to:

"      This refers to a mechanisms that a node uses to discover the realms
      that are reachable from a given network."

     The selection will be dependent upon for
     example the support for an access technology by the device and
     availability of such access technology based networks.

Recommend we change this to:

"     The selection will be dependent upon the access technologies supported
     by the device and the availability of networks supporting those
     technologies."

bearer type -> bearer types

Section 2.1

as proposed in IEEE 802.11k

Please include a reference:

[IEEE802.11k]
         Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, "Draft
         Ammendment to Standard for Telecommunications and Information
         Exchange Between Systems - LAN/MAN Specific Requirements -
         Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical
         Layer (PHY) Specifications: Radio Resource Management", IEEE
         802.11k, D4.1, July 2006.

         UAM

Please expand this (Universal Access Method).

Section 2.3

  Within the past IETF ROAMOPS WG, a number of additional approaches

Suggest changing to:

  Within the IETF ROAMOPS WG, additional approaches

Section 3.1

"The effects to handoff" -> "The effects on handoff"

Section 3.2

Recommend changing the title to "IEEE 802"

Section 3.3

"lets the user to choose the desired PLMN" -> "lets the user choose the 
desired PLMN"

"or a Visited PLMN (VPLMN) is a roaming case" -> "or a Visited PLMN (VPLMN) 
in the roaming case"

"both SSID- and EAP-based" -> "both SSID and EAP-based"

Section 4.1

"phone book approach hard." -> "phone book approach difficult."

Section 5

"seems hard given" -> "seems difficult given"

References

  [11]  Housley, R. and T. Moore, "Certificate Extensions and
        Attributes Supporting Authentication in Point-to-Point Protocol
        (PPP) and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN)", RFC 3770,
        May 2004.

this has been obsoleted by RFC 4334:

        Housley, R. and T. Moore, "Certificate Extensions and
        Attributes Supporting Authentication in Point-to-Point Protocol
        (PPP) and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN)", RFC 4334,
        February 2006.